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Author Topic: SSD HD's ?  (Read 2997 times)

westfreeman

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SSD HD's ?
« on: February 17, 2014, 09:05:48 pm »

I am looking to add a Solid State Hard Drive to my 2009 Mac Pro.

I see as much as a $100 difference on the same amount of storage space with some drives.  As this is a older Mac Pro I only need the 3G speed.  macsales.com has the drive that I was looking at for (480 GB - $365); B & H has it for ~ $260

I need some help with this as I do not see much of a difference other than the price.

Thanks,
West
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Steve Weldon

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2014, 11:08:27 pm »

It would help if you posted the names, specs, etc.. or at least a link.  We can't discuss what we can't see.
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Steve Weldon

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2014, 11:31:18 pm »

Okay, I went to B&H and searched for 480gb ssd's and found the Crucial 480gb.. didn't mention warranty that I noticed but its' specs (achievable only with a 6gbps SATAIII port) are decent, not great.. but decent.  It's 2 gens old.d

Then I went to OWC and their house brand had the only 480gb SSD for $365, only a 3 year warranty (probably what the Crucial above has) and roughly the same specs.  I can't tell from OWC's description, but I think it's also 2 gens old.  Maybe one.


Then (because I do this all the time) I went to Amazon (or try Newegg) and looked up their Samsung 500gb Evo, significantly better specs if you can take advantage of them, current generation, and it's $299..  Also a 3 year warranty.


Other things to think about:  If you're getting your install kit (data doubler, whatever it's called) from OWC it's nice to have their full support.. I'd rate this as minor.  Samsung has a very nice tool kit.  When you need i, I'd rate it as major.

Other than that they're both 6gbps SATA6 SSD's, same size/weight/etc..    By now the choice should be a no-brainer.  However, if that $35 difference is really bothering you consider that the Evo is can migrate with whatever new gear you buy  where you can take advantage of those big differences in performance.. where with any new gear you wouldn't want to load it down with (remember, we're talking 2-3 years from now) a relatively poor performing SSD.

Good luck to you.
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francois

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2014, 04:46:53 am »

I've been installing a few SSDs in Mac Pros. Mostly from Samsung and from Crucial (M500). I used Apricorn Solo PCIe interface to connect the SSDs. The Solo x1 ($49) is compatible with older Mac Pros and the x2 ($99) is only compatible with newer machines.
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Francois

westfreeman

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2014, 09:16:48 am »

Thanks for the replys

I've got some shopping to do.
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langier

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2014, 11:12:21 am »

I got a Sandisk 480gb ssd on sale at Newegg a few month ago and put it in my 2009 MacPro. I used the bus for the second SuperDrive since it was the only slot left.

 So far, no problems.

I first cloned my OS 10.6 onto the drive and then updated it to 10.8 to see what software I could break and which priner drivers still worked. The upgrade and getting the software into order took hours rather than the weeks I expected. I did have some software that no longer worked, bit it's on the old startup drives and that is still bootable.

A few things I simply created alias of the folders so I would have fewer files and "collections" with which to deal, including iPhoto and iTunes, otherwise, I pretty much have the systems duplicated.

Startup of both the OS and especially Photoshop are much faster and streaming media no longer stops to respool. Downloads from CF and SD cards are at least twice as fast now, if not even faster.

When I got the new system for our studio (MP 2013), I pretty much did the same thing, but did a total fresh install on the startup disk before cloning to a Samsung 840 which is now the primary startup.

It, too, seems to be working just fine.

After 30 years running a Mac daily, even a cheap and "slow" ssd seems quite fast to me. Anything faster and I'd have to thing and work faster to take advantage and I'm getting too old to get any faster.
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MirekElsner

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2014, 12:28:53 am »

You may want to look at this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/macbook-pro-ssd-trim,3538.html

that discusses use of TRIM on third party SSDs on a Mac.
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Lightsmith

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2014, 05:54:49 pm »

As with many things one reaches a point of diminishing returns in terms of increased performance and real world benefit. If you can boot in 2 seconds instead of 4 seconds or 8 seconds what does that really buy you?

I care about batch processing performance but even that is minor as I let it run in the background and seldom care whether processing a couple thousand image files takes 3 hours of 4 hours. It really does not matter.

On a laptop the SSD will greatly increase battery life and for that I pay the premium.
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Ellis Vener

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Re: SSD HD's ?
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2014, 07:00:37 am »

You may want to look at this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/macbook-pro-ssd-trim,3538.html

that discusses use of TRIM on third party SSDs on a Mac.

The 11th comment to that post  was very helpful.
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